…I’m sure it makes sense to somebody somewhere
“I was somewhat demoralized,” Barr told House Jan. 6 committee investigators, “because I thought, ‘Boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has, you know, lost contact with — he’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff.’”
…but I know what it sounds like to me
Jason Miller, a Trump campaign official, told the committee that Giuliani said, “‘We won. They’re stealing it from us. We need to go say that we won.’ And, essentially, that anyone who didn’t agree with that position was being weak.” Miller, whose testimony was played in video by the committee, said that Giuliani was intoxicated. (A lawyer for Giuliani denied he was inebriated.)
…& I definitely haven’t been drinking…although frankly I can see how one might be inclined to
The Jan. 6 committee is also tracking the money. One big reason why Trump and his allies continued to push false election fraud claims long after the courts had ruled against Trump was to continue raising millions from fervent Trump supporters, committee members argued.
The committee has previously hinted that money could be a theme that runs throughout the hearings, including who paid for the Jan. 6 rally.
…I can also see why you might want to follow the money
Jan. 6 Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters after the hearing that more details about Trump’s fundraising efforts will be published in the committee’s final report.
[…]
Supporters were urged to donate to Trump’s “election defense fund” but the committee said it found no such committee or fund existed. Instead, much of the $250 million raised went to Trump’s new super PAC, called the Save America PAC, launched just the days after the election.
The Jan. 6 panel said Save America funneled millions of dollars of contributions to Trump-friendly organizations and entities. That included $1 million to the Conservative Partnership Institute, a charitable foundation closely linked to Trump’s last chief of staff, Mark Meadows; another $1 million to the America First Policy Institute, a closely-aligned advocacy group which employs several former Trump administration officials; more than $200,000 to the Trump Hotels chain; and more than $5 million to the events company that produced Trump’s Jan. 6 rally before the attack.
[…]
Though the campaign would raise $774 million, Stepien said that when he became campaign manager he inherited an operation that was at a low point in the polls and both “structurally and fiscally deficient.” He set about “fixing things that could be fixed with 115 days left in the campaign.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/jan-6-hearing-committee-takeaways-day-two
…but…I’d have to admit that there’s a lot I’m hoping that more people are going to see…& not at all sure I see quite why that part seems to be taking the long way around…I guess it’s true what they say about what happens while the truth is getting its boots on
[…]even as the hearing unfolded on live television, leading Republicans defiantly pushed a counter narrative that claims the committee is illegitimate, politically motivated and out of touch with Americans’ everyday lives.
[…]
“The whole thing’s an absurdity designed by desperate Democrats to try to help them this fall and to try to weaken Trump if he should run again in 2024,” Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker, told the Guardian. “So I don’t pay any attention to it.”
Gingrich described the hearings as “a Stalinist show trial” that have “nothing to do with fairness or finding the truth”.
[…]
Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House judiciary committee, posted: “The same party that thinks men can get pregnant wants you to trust them when it comes to the economy and the January 6th Committee.”
[…]
Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican conference, wrote on Twitter: “Lame Duck Speaker Pelosi’s select committee is illegitimate. Its purpose is to distract the American people from the FACT that House Dems have no agenda for Americans and no real solutions to the problems that we face on a daily basis.”
[…]
Andy McCarthy, an author and lawyer, also challenged the process: “They’ve got a very good story to tell. The problem is they’ve set it up in a process that is not a fair process that’s aimed at getting to the truth and giving whatever contra arguments there are their day in court. And as a result, it’s more like messaging than it is like a real investigation. I could have been very impressive in court if there were no defense lawyers, you know.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/13/trump-republican-supporters-reaction-january-6-hearings
…& maybe that last part…for all that it sounds like bullshit to me…is why despite the considerable evidence of staggeringly criminal acts…& what seems to be a matching intent I don’t believe to be in “reasonable” doubt…why one thing in particular doesn’t seem to be showing up
When pressed on the matter and whether the committee had ruled out the possibility of referring criminal charges, particularly for former President Donald Trump, Thompson replied: “We don’t have authority.”
…it’s…frankly confusing
But the committee’s vice chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., suggested later on Monday that a decision was not yet final.
[…]
Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., tweeted in a separate statement, that the committee “has yet to vote,” on recommending criminal referrals.
[…]
“It’s absolutely clear that what President Trump was doing — what a number of people around him were doing — that they knew it was unlawful. They did it anyway,” Cheney said during a CNN interview [in April], when asked her whether the committee had enough evidence for a criminal referral.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/jan-6-committee-will-not-make-criminal-referrals-chairman-says
…the buck’s got to stop somewhere…if that’s not presuming too much
“I am watching and I will be watching all the hearings, although I may not be able to watch all of it live,” Garland said shortly after the select committee concluded its second hearing. “I can assure you the January 6 prosecutors are watching all of the hearings, as well.”
The attorney general declined to address potential investigations into Trump or other individuals mentioned by the select committee at the hearings, saying that could undermine prosecutors’ work and would be unfair to people under scrutiny who might never be charged.
[…]
The justice department appears in recent weeks to have expanded its criminal investigation to examine top figures connected to Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including government officials and Republican lawyers and operatives.
[…]
The attorney general added some additional insight into the justice department’s decision-making with respect to opening an investigation into Trump, saying that internal guidelines did not prevent him from taking such action if warranted.
[…]
But his careful response reflected the delicate and complicated legal considerations looming over the justice department should it consider whether to investigate and charge Trump over his efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat to Biden.
[…]
The internal deliberations also come as the select committee has publicly said Trump repeatedly broke the law as he sought to overturn the 2020 election results, but criminal referrals are not binding and the final decision to prosecute rests with the justice department.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/13/merrick-garland-trump-january-6-capitol-attack
…at this point in proceedings…perhaps most keenly where ol’ impeachment² is concerned
…if you still think “unprecedented” is synonymous with “impossible”…it seems like you’d have to be in some form of denial?
“America deserves better than this. We can do better than this but the path charted by Senator Sanders is full-on socialism,” Graham said, after a conversation about gas prices and rising inflation.
[…]
Graham did not give specifics on his better way.
[…]
“Do you think raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is socialistic? Do you think doing what every major country does – guaranteeing healthcare to all people – is socialistic? Do you think expanding Medicare to cover dental care is socialistic?” Sanders said.
[…]
“I think most people, frankly, will tell you what they tell me: that the Congress is way, way out of touch with the needs of the American people,” Sanders said, adding: “We have a corrupt political system dominated by wealthy campaign contributors.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/13/bernie-sanders-lindsey-graham-republicans-fox-news-debate
…& like so many things…that isn’t what you might call uniquely an american problem
The judgment in favour of Carole Cadwalladr in the libel action brought against her by the multimillionaire Brexit backer Arron Banks is both extremely welcome and vitally important. It is great news for the public’s right to know and for supporters of a free press – and great news for campaigners against the often oppressive laws that have made London the libel capital of the world.
[…]
We should celebrate Cadwalladr’s victory in the face of daunting and oppressive odds. This is her victory. It is also a public victory. But she should never have been placed in such a situation where her reporting in the public interest placed her in such personal peril. The libel laws still need to be drastically reformed. In March, with reference to Slapps and plans to amend the Defamation Act, Boris Johnson said: “The ability of a free press to hold the powerful to account is fundamental to our democracy and as a former journalist I am determined we must never allow criticism to be silenced.” Actions not words are what we now desperately need, not least from him.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/13/carole-cadwalladr-victory-arron-banks-libel-laws-drastic-reform
…necessity may well be the mother of invention…but I’m not down with the interpretation that’s going around which seems to equate the invention part with just making shit up
In justifying its attempt to unilaterally overturn parts of the post-Brexit agreement with the EU, the UK government has invoked a little-known legal principle known as the “doctrine of necessity”. The loophole is allowed by the UN’s International Law Commission to be used by a state facing “grave and imminent peril”.
But the government’s ex-legal adviser Jonathan Jones said the EU would find the use of the doctrine “completely unpersuasive”.
[…]
Jones, who quit as head of the government legal department in November 2020, told Sky News that to invoke such an argument required “an incredibly high threshold” but the government’s reasoning was “very thin”.
[…]
“I have no doubt the EU will bring a legal challenge,” Jones said. But he added the UK appeared to be “seeking to undo the role of the European court itself so it’s very unclear whether it will even cooperate with any legal action or dispute resolution proceedings that the EU may bring, so I think we’re in for a very, very tangled episode following this bill.”
[…]
Mark Elliot, a professor of public law and chair of the faculty of law at the University of Cambridge […] pointed out the International Law Commission precluded a state from being able to use the “doctrine of necessity” defence if it had “contributed to the situation of necessity”.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/13/northern-ireland-protocol-what-is-the-doctrine-of-necessity
…either way…I’m not inclined to buy the suggestion that little lot is naught but a “relatively trivial set of adjustments”
Johnson characterised the bill on Monday as a “bureaucratic change” designed to unify Northern Irish communities and protect the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.
[…]
[a damning joint letter] [signed by 52 of the 90 members of the devolved assembly elected in May, said] “To complain the protocol lacks cross-community consent, while ignoring the fact that Brexit itself – let alone hard Brexit – lacks even basic majority consent here, is a grotesque act of political distortion.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/13/a-bureaucratic-change-boris-johnson-defends-northern-ireland-protocol-bill
…if it all comes down to which audience you identify with
She is also among the people across the country willing to do whatever they can to ensure that the imagined enemies of the United States are defeated in the 2022 midterm elections and beyond. From school boards to state houses to Congress, their goal is to take political territory, and for evidence that this is possible, they look to northwest Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose first-time candidacy two years ago defined the fringe of the Republican Party and who is now running for reelection as one of its standard bearers.
[…]
[In Greene] Rubino saw a person like herself: a political outsider who shared the same sense of urgency about the same dystopian America, one that required a popular uprising to save it. To that end, Rubino had so far managed to rally enough people to get the county election board ousted, replacing its members with those who believed that the 2020 election was stolen. She was part of a group called the Domestically Terrorized Moms that was pressing the local school board to get rid of a curriculum they believed to be grooming children for sexual predators.
[…]
She was so busy that she barely had time to keep up with all the updates on her social media scrolls, which came by the dozens every hour.
[…]
“Sometimes, I’d like to know what the point is,” she said, driving in a screw. “The fact that I can’t figure it out is what bothers me. Because I need to understand.”
It was a question that had troubled her since the first time she ever asked it, which was when she was 8 years old, sitting in the back seat of her mother’s car on the way to religion class.
“The thought just came into my head,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘What are we doing this for? What are we doing any of this for if we’re just going to die? You die, and it’s over. So, what’s the point?’ I felt afraid. Afraid to the point of not wanting to think about that anymore.”
She had never stopped thinking about it, though, and in some ways, she said, it was the question that had drawn her into the movement for Donald Trump, who was the first politician to give voice to her private thoughts about what America was becoming, which made her feel recognized and even important. She had never voted before, never felt herself mattering as a citizen until Trump came on the scene along with everything else — the rallies, the social media, and eventually, successors such as Greene.
They were the ones who introduced her to the version of America she now inhabited, but what was happening, she realized, was that the more she believed in it, the more that all the certainties of the old America were turning into suspicions. She no longer trusted her schooling. She no longer trusted traditional news. She no longer trusted election results. She no longer trusted courts, or local government, or state government, or the U.S. government, or any of the institutions of democracy she once took for granted. She was no longer sure America was the country she once thought it was.
But every question led to another suspicion, she said, and every suspicion led to another question, and at times it could all feel so destabilizing that she was no longer sure of her own sense of reality itself, which had so thoroughly broken down that she sometimes had to regain her bearings by doing what she was doing now.
[…]
“Sometimes I’m like, what if I’m wrong?” Rubino said. “It crosses my mind. Then I ask God: If I’m doing something wrong, please give me the strength to figure it out. Because I really want to understand what the point is. This can’t be what life is, that you get up and go to work and come home. That as humans, we’re nothing.”
[…]
She listened as Greene spoke of an “American revival.” She nodded along as Greene said, “It is we who will set the public agenda for the next decade.”
“The establishment GOP is falling in line — they will, and they want to,” Greene continued, and in the back of the room, a woman who climbed into a dumpster to save America knew that this was true.
“And they have,” Rubino said, finishing the thought.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/12/election-suspicion-georgia-greene-trump/
…& who gets a say in what
Now that a bipartisan group of senators have announced a deal on a legislative response to mass shootings, the question is what are its chances of passing Congress and being signed by President Biden into law.
[…]
In an interview Sunday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said “the heavy lifting is done” and “we have a pretty firm agreement.”
Republican aides, however, are sounding more cautious, saying that legislative text still must be written and agreed to — a process that can become difficult.
…maybe cautious is the only kind of optimism on offer…but…you know…something’s better than nothing
A good sign is that the statement announcing the deal was signed by 10 Republicans — the minimum number needed to pass the Senate. They are: Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), and Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.).
[…]
Here’s what’s on the table:
- Incentives for states to implement red flag laws
- Enhanced background checks for 18-21 year old buyers by accessing juvenile records
- Criminalizing third party straw purchases
- Closing the “boyfriend” loophole in domestic violence cases
- Funding for school mental health and telehealth
- Funding for school safety resources
- Clarifying federal firearm license requirements and criminalizing evasion
[…]
So what could go wrong?
[…] the National Rifle Association hasn’t publicly taken a stance on the measure. And if it decides to denounce the proposal, it could make much-needed Republican lawmakers skittish.
[…]
“The NRA will continue to oppose any effort to insert gun-control policies, initiatives that override constitutional due process protections, and efforts to deprive law-abiding citizens of their fundamental right to protect themselves and their loved ones into this or any other legislation,” said NRA spokeswoman, Amy Hunter.
The more hard line Gun Owners of America put out a warning last week when the parameters of a framework started to come together, calling Republicans in the negotiations RINOs (Republicans in Name Only). As of publish time, they group hadn’t released a statement on the agreement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/13/evaluating-odds-gun-deal-makes-it-through-congress/
…mind you…as I seem to be managing to demonstrate to myself this week by being too busy to have had time for the things I’d prefer to have spent mine on…like yesterday’s consideration of “The Road Not Taken”[…thanks for that, by the way…speaking for myself, I would be a fan of seeing more of that sort of thing…even if I wind up feeling compelled to wade through stuff like that Orr piece you linked to see for myself where he loses his footing…so I’ll find the time when I can]…but…well…the heat is on
A massive heat wave that has set scores of temperature records from Texas to California is swelling into the eastern United States. Over 100 million Americans from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes are under heat alerts through the middle of the week as temperatures soar toward the triple digits.
[…]
Heat advisories or excessive-heat watches and warnings cover the entirety of Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana and parts of more than a dozen other states.
The National Weather Service forecasts that temperatures could challenge records in more than 100 cities through Wednesday, from Denver to Charleston, S.C.
[…]
Forecasts into next week call for the punishing heat wave to persist over the central states. Heat waves like this are typical staples of summer, but their impacts are made more severe and prolonged by human-caused climate change.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/13/heatwave-records-storms-derecho/
A second extreme heat event of the year is searing Spain and southern France, with temperatures hitting highs not normally recorded until July or August and experts warning summer heatwaves are happening earlier and more often.
[…]
“We are facing unusually high temperatures for June,” a spokesperson for Aemet, the [Spanish] state meteorological office, said, adding that the latest episode was the third-earliest on record and the first to arrive this early since 1981.
The forecaster has said global heating meant Spain’s summer now began between 20 and 40 days earlier than it did 50 years ago. Last year was Spain’s hottest and driest on record, with temperatures hitting an all-time high of 47.4C in Córdoba province.
The extreme heat episodes in the two countries follow the hottest May on record in France and Spain. France recorded temperatures exceeding 38C – about 17C hotter than the seasonal average – in some parts of the south last month.
[…]
Drought is also becoming an increasing concern, with 35 French départements already having imposed water restrictions. Almost the whole of Portugal had been classified as being in “severe drought” by the end of May, according to the national weather service Ipma.
Last month was the country’s hottest May since 1931, with the average temperature more than 3C higher than usual and with average rainfall of just under 9mm – roughly 13% of the normal level. Just over 97% of Portugal is in “severe drought”.
“This deficit in rainfall is in line with the trend of the last 20 years, marked by more frequent dry periods as a result of climate change,” said Vanda Pires, an Ipma climatologist, adding that temperatures could also reach 40C in Portugal this week.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/13/spain-and-southern-france-hit-by-second-extreme-heat-event-of-year
…& the clock is ticking
Scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Sonora are focused on developing wheat varieties which can better cope with drought, rising temperatures and excessive rainfall. In other words, wheat that can thrive under the extreme and unpredictable weather conditions farmers are experiencing globally due to the rapidly warming planet.
[…]
The diversity is the crucial to breeding resilience and adaptability, which is why scientists are turning to wild and forgotten wheat varieties from across the world to search for those with temperature- and drought-tolerant traits such as deep roots, waxy leaves and stress hormones.
But it’s a complicated, never-ending race against time, as global heating drives climate disasters and the emergence of new, adapted or more aggressive pathogens.
[…]
Wheat is the most widely consumed grain globally, accounting for a fifth of our carbohydrate and protein intake, and is farmed in every inhabited continent to make bread, chapatis, pasta, couscous, noodles and pastries eaten by billions of people. The wheat we eat today can be traced back to wild grasses domesticated by Neolithic farmers in western Asia and northern Africa, coming to Mexico relatively recently with Spanish settlers.
Wheat does best in temperate climates, but no matter where humans took seeds, wheat adapted to the local ecosystem, evolving over generations as each variety or landrace developed good and bad quirks.
Diversity was the norm, and before the second world war thousands of landraces were being cultivated across the globe, often side by side with other crops – which partially buffered communities from ecological disasters such as disease epidemics and extreme weather. But yields were often low as many wheats were tall and gangly, and would be harvested too early or else tumble in windy conditions.
Global wheat production tripled after the Green Revolution in the mid-20th century after Norman Borlaug, an American plant pathologist deployed to Mexico by the Rockefeller Foundation, used a semi-dwarf gene from a Japanese wheat to create shorter stem varieties which when farmed with fertiliser and water improved yields beyond anyone’s dreams.
This was the birth of extractive industrial agriculture and Borlaug’s discoveries in Mexico changed the way the world farmed wheat, rice and many other crops.
Uniformity, standardisation, and fossil fuel-driven technologies became the gold standard and Borlaug was awarded the Nobel peace prize as malnutrition declined. But the loss of diversity in crops, ecosystems and traditional sustainable practices came at a huge environmental and human cost. And now the climate crisis is making us pay.
After six years, the program ends up with 50 or so new wheat varieties which countries can take and test before releasing to their farmers. The goal is to shorten the breeding cycle to four years to help farmers with few resources better cope with the rapidly changing climate and emerging disease threats.
“The private and public sectors are not in this together. No one is getting rich selling drought-resistant wheat seeds in Africa, so we need public programs to develop diverse seeds and reach small farmers who are not served by commercial seed companies,” said Luigi Guarino, director of science at the Crop Trust.
About 70% of the world’s wheat can be traced back to seeds developed here, yet just four transnational agrochemical companies control 60% of the global seed market. The big four focus on yield, and produce most of the world’s fungicides and pesticides, which degrade the environment and reduce biodiversity, making farms more vulnerable to climate change shocks.
It’s unclear how many wheat varieties with useful climate- and disease-resistant traits have been lost as a result of the industrialization of our food system, but there are about 800,000 unique wheat seeds stored in gene banks globally, of which nearly a quarter are at CIMMYT. The collection includes wild grassy ancestors, landraces and obsolete varieties that developed disease susceptibility but may contain useful traits such as deep roots, which are good at finding water during drought, or the ability to delay stress-related premature ageing, which affects photosynthesis.
…turns out…it’s maybe not all about shedding light on things
A 2007 study found that for every 1C increase in night-time temperature there is a staggering 6% drop in wheat yields – a steeper decline than hotter days. The climate crisis is triggering record-breaking day temperatures, but night temperatures are increasing significantly faster.
This is potentially catastrophic and “makes understanding plant night-time responses to temperature so important to researchers, breeders and farmers”, said Lorna McAusland, a wheat physiologist at the University of Nottingham collaborating with CIMMYT.
[…]
Initial results found that some varieties lost more water than others, so now researchers must tease out the genetics to help breeders improve night-time heat tolerance in future seeds. The aim is to outpace human-made global heating and breed climate-resilient varieties so yields do not collapse, as worst-case scenarios predict.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/12/wheat-breeding-climate-crisis-drought-resistant
…still & all…if I had my druthers…I’d take less literal waves & landslides over this sort
Record flooding and rockslides following a burst of heavy rains prompted the rare closure on Monday of all five entrances to Yellowstone national park at the start of the summer tourist season, the park superintendent said.
The entire park, spanning parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, will remain closed to visitors, including those with lodging and camping reservations, at least through Wednesday, as officials assess damage to roads, bridges and other facilities.
[…there’s a video in a tweet (that won’t embed) if you click through]
The flooding and slides were triggered by days of torrential showers in the park and steady rains across much of the wider region after one of its wettest springs in many years. The park service characterized the levels of rainfall and flooding sweeping the park as unprecedented.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/13/yellowstone-national-park-closure-flooding-mudslides
…& the burning issues of the day might be
…well
…I guess actually the literal burning issues might be a little higher up on the global to-do list
The Pipeline Fire is the largest of the three burning in the Coconino National Forest. It began around 10:15 a.m. Sunday and by Monday evening it was estimated to be around 5,000 acres, the Forest Service said.
[…]
It was just around two months ago that the so-called Tunnel Fire broke out in the same area, burning more than 19,000 acres.
[…]
The two other fires were reported east of the Pipeline Fire. The Haywire and Double fires are together around 2,000 acres and will most likely merge, the Forest Service said.
[…]
In Southern California, a wildfire burning in the Angeles National Forest and on private property near Wrightwood had burned almost 1,000 acres by Monday evening, fire officials there said.
[…]
In New Mexico, the largest wildfire in recorded state history, the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, was 70 percent contained Monday, according to federal officials. It has burned more than 320,000 acres.
…but…for all that I’m a fan of irony…sometimes it’s a little much
The Hermits Peak Fire began during a prescribed burn, which are designed to reduce wildfire risks, after winds caused spot fires, the Forest Service has said.
The Calf Canyon Fire nearby was caused by a “pile burn holdover” from January, the agency has said. The fire stayed dormant for months before reemerging in April, it said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pipeline-wildfire-arizona-triples-size-day-evacuations-ordered
…& all in all…if some reasonable judgements don’t emerge by the culmination of all this…it’s hardly going to be surprising if fishing expeditions get a bad name
The World Trade Organization has been struggling for over two decades to reach an agreement among its members to restrict global subsidies to the fishing industry that are pushing some fish stocks to the brink of collapse. As recently as last November, trade negotiators seemed poised to rein in these subsidies, until a spike in Covid-19 delayed the deal.
[…]
Success at the W.T.O. always requires U.S. leadership. But it also will require that the world’s largest financial enablers of harmful fishing, including China and the European Union, end their devastating handouts.
[…]
Fisheries can be a renewable source of food and jobs, but only if they are harvested in a sustainable manner. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 34 percent of the world’s ocean fish stocks, constituting almost a quarter of the seafood produced, are already fished to the point of being biologically unsustainable. An additional 60 percent are currently fully fished — they can’t afford a further increase in fishing. Recognizing this, some leaders from the seafood retail sector are increasingly calling for an end to harmful fisheries subsidies, to ensure the longevity of their supply chains and to respond to consumer demand for fish that is sustainably, responsibly and legally caught.
[…]
The most pernicious threat to fish populations is overfishing by industrial-scale operations subsidized by China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and various E.U. countries. China is estimated to spend more than $5.9 billion annually on these subsidies, and E.U. members continue to spend billions of euros even while the W.T.O. negotiations have been underway.
The United States isn’t blameless. While it has been a global leader in fisheries conservation, spending around $2 billion a year on marine protected areas, monitoring and surveillance of fisheries and scientific research, it still spends approximately $1.1 billion on capacity-promoting subsidies annually, like those for fuel expenditures. If the United States redirected that billion dollars on promoting long-term sustainability, it would help push other countries to do the same and lead to higher domestic catches in the long run.
[…]
In the W.T.O. negotiations, the United States needs to lead the world in reaching a deal that includes strong prohibitions on subsidies that fund illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, as well as distant-water fishing — fishing in other countries’ waters or on the high seas just outside them. Over half of high-seas fishing grounds would be unprofitable without subsidies and low wages (in some cases unfair wages or even forced labor) that are distorting the market and artificially propping up fishing in those areas, according to a study published in the journal Science Advances in 2018.
[…]
To reach a meaningful agreement, the countries parceling out big subsidies will need to move beyond their supportive statements and be willing to cut their most harmful handouts. That includes the United States. But the W.T.O. is the sum of its members. Sustained leadership by the United States will be critical — but major members such as China, the European Union and Japan, and the rest must act in the interests of sustainability.
The World Can’t Keep Fishing Like This [NYT]
…not least on account of how there’s plenty of not-fish in the sea these days
“No longer is the presence of plastic in the environment limited to microplastics or a bottle in the sea,” said Javier Hernández Borges, an associate professor of analytical chemistry at the University of La Laguna in Tenerife, who coined the term plastitar. “Now it’s giving rise to new formations; in this case, one that combines two contaminants.”
More than two years after researchers stumbled across it, the find has been captured in new research that describes it as an “unassessed threat” for coastal environments. It adds to a growing list of marine pollution fashioned out of plastic, from pyroplastics – melted plastic that takes on the appearance of small rocks – to plastiglomerates, formed from a combination of melted plastic, beach sediment and basalt lava fragments.
When it comes to plastitar, its formation is simple: as residue from oil spills in the ocean evaporates and weathers, it washes ashore as tar balls that cling to the rocky shores of the Canary Islands. “It acts like Play-Doh,” Hernández Borges said. “And when waves carrying microplastics or any other kind of marine debris crash on to the rocks, this debris sticks to the tar.”
[…]
The discovery feeds into the emerging picture of a global plastic cycle, with plastic moving through the atmosphere, oceans and land in a way that echoes natural processes such as the carbon cycle.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/13/plastitar-mix-of-tar-and-microplastics-is-new-form-of-pollution-say-scientists
…or the part where it seems to stand to reason that a threat which goes unassessed presumably isn’t in any immediate danger of not remaining unaddressed…which…not entirely by coincidence…the clock is informing me the more immediate demands of my day are not amenable to…indeed, if they go the way of yesterday I may fail to claw out enough time to add the tunes that ought to go at the end of this…which I guess winds up being about here…though there’s certainly no shortage of other stuff I’d sooner spend that time on…but, you know…needs must when the devil drives & all that?
[…ok…I’ve rounded up a few tunes & enough of a breathing space in my day to cut&paste ’em…but there’s a non-zero chance that might be as much slack as the day will grant me…so apologies in advance if that makes it seem like I’m not paying attention to anything after this?]
It’s always been about the con with Trump.
I received emails from trump and his family. I am pretty sure a family member signed me up.
…not that two wrongs make a right or anything…but…if you happen to know which family member…& have their email address…maybe one “good turn” deserves another?
And did you respond? I would have, with something nonsensical. Were I in possession of their email addresses, I would write back and remind them that today is Ashley and Mary Kate Olsen’s birthdays (they turn 36) and ask if they sent a card at least.
I have received those too…it’s not your family signing you up, its Facebook or Google. My Facebook account is a psuedoname, and all the emails were addressed to that name.
…ok…so…since I’m currently in your-call-is-important-to-us-but-not-in-a-way-that-means-we-aim-to-speak-to-you-or-anything purgatory & figured I’d be better coming here than resorting to tearing my hair out or climbing the walls…I’m morbidly fascinated by that phenomenon?
…somewhere between you creating that account & those emails turning up addressed to it presumably some people paid some people for addresses to add to their fundraising mailing list & something told them it was worth widening that net to catch yours…& maybe it’s a relatively simple thing like family-member-association that pulled you below the minimum degrees of separation from potentially-lucrative recipients…or maybe it’s some vastly more complicated algorithmically-derived blend of attributes & assumptions facebook thinks its data about you imply in terms of ways they could monetize you…which is more or less where the morbid fascination part comes in for me
…but I guess the main question it leaves me with is that if unsolicited robocalls trying to sell you something are illegal…doesn’t it seem like several things about that setup maybe ought to be?
In addition to my 5 calls I’ve signed up for an email campaign to hold Fox News accountable for spreading misinformation by going directly to its advertisers. It’s the tactic this group used against Breitbart with some success. Most of Fox’s revenue comes from the cable and satellite companies that carry it and not advertisers but it’s a start. If you still use cable or satellite to watch tv and are thinking of dropping it for streaming please do, and tell them it’s because they carry Fox News.
I’m glad you got the Ethan Grey Twitter thread in there, RIP. I read it a few days ago and was impressed with how succinctly it summed up the Republican “position.” I mean, “The Party of NO” was a pretty good summation, but this really clearly articulates the “why” of Republican thought and how they effectively hijack the simpleminded who can’t see beyond black and white.
Yes, I saw the Ethan Grey thread last night and it is quite the eye opener.
Here is a good boy out on a hike.
It was a good thread, but he still made the same mistake a lot of people make when discussing Republican motives by saying it’s all Caucasian male supremacy. Some of the biggest gains the Rs are making are among Latinx voters, who seem to be buying what the Rs are selling: I tell you what to do, but you don’t tell me what to do.
Yeah, the Cuban-American community in Florida is all in on Republicans. I’d extend the Republican appeal beyond white males to any community with strong xenophobia and misogyny.